As costs associated with operating and maintaining an automobile have risen, and as many former neighborhood gas stations have closed or converted to "gas-and-go" stations which do not offer automobile servicing, more motorists have experimented with, or switched over to changing their own automotive motor oil.
One undesirable consequence of this trend is the loss of a considerable amount of reuseable oil from the petroleum refining and distribution system. Generally, when a car's oil is changed at a service station, the waste oil is saved at the station, from which it is periodically collected by the service station's supplier of new oil, or by an independent reprocesser. The collected waste oil is then re-refined into a useable product. Whereas many service stations have, as a convenience, or under direction by suppliers or governmental authority, established facilities to receive from "do-it-yourselfers" (hereinafter "DIY's") waste oil that is brought to the station. This has largely proved to be inconvenient both to the DIY's and to the dealers and much waste oil never makes it back from the DIY's to these facilities. Rather, it is sewered or run out on the ground, or disposed-of in municipal waste, i.e. put out in an unsegregated manner with the trash for collection and disposition at a landfill. In many urbanized areas casually discarded, used motor oil has become a pollution menace, and the subject of uncharacteristic criminal behavior by otherwise moral and upstanding citizenry.
One problem DIY's have with doing their part in recycling waste oil, is that many automobiles hold 5 to 7 quarts of oil, whereas most empty containers DIY's are likely to have readily available are 4-quart containers. It only takes one time of seeing the last quart of draining dirty oil brim over the container and spill on the garage floor, street or ground to convince a novice DIY that he or she has taken on a project he or she is incompetent to attempt ever again, and is one reason why the oil is dumped illegally.
Another problem DIY's have with such a project is that most conveniently available closeable containers that have a large enough capacity, are too tall to fit under the car at the place where the oil is to be drained from the crankcase. Some DIY's decide upon discovering this problem to abandon the project and take the car to a service station, others move the car to a place (such as over a storm drain) where they can let the waste oil drain out without being collected. A particularly enterprising segment of DIY's devices a multi-step operation in which they first drain the waste oil from the crankcase into a low-sided, broad container such as a dishpan, and then pour it from the dishpan or the like, into a jug that is too tall to have fit under the car, but which has the virtue of being closeable. Some DIY's make the same mistake at this stage as was mentioned earlier: trying to pour 5 to 7 quarts of oil into a 4-quart container. Others cause spillage when they attempt this transfer without the aid of a funnel, or with an inadequate funnel. Besides the mess, this can prove to be expensive, as when the DIY winds-up discarding an expensive polyethylene dishpan after a single use, because it has gotten too messy and did not work well for this purpose, and is another reason why the oil is dumped illegally.
A further problem is that some collecting stations will only permit the deposit of used oil in approved containers, or will only permit the DIY's to deposit used oil by pouring from the brought-in containers, with the understanding that the emptied containers themselves may not be left at the station but must immediately be taken back by the DIY's who brought them.
Government information reveals that illegally dumped dirty motor oil (tens of thousands of barrels daily), constitute the largest single source of pollution of our waterways.
The two reasons most frequently stated by DIY's to the present inventor for their dumping of used motor oil are:
a. Their inability to find an empty jug to transfer the dirty oil into from the pan. (A closable jug for receiving and transporting the dirty oil automatically comes with each of the kits of the invention).
b. Their inability and/or difficulty to pour 5 to 7 quarts of dirty oil from a pan having an opening of over 1 foot in diameter, into a jug opening that is only 1 inch, in diameter without spilling. With the kit(s) of the invention, the DIY's do not have to physically pour the dirty oil from the pan to the jug.